On the way in to work, I heard yet another example of the deplorable trend of taking the vocal tracks of slow songs– in this case, “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” by Vampire Weekend– and replacing the musical backing with a 120 beats-per-minute dance beat that sounds like it was generated by a high-end Casio keyboard. These turn up over and over, and every time it happens, it annoys me to no end.

But why should pop music be the only genre to get this treatment? Thus, a poll suggesting some other slow songs that ought(?) to receive this treatment:

It’s been done a number of times with Canon in D. Check out how this kid rocks it with a guitar at about 160/min [est]on Youtube. There are a lot of interpretations of Canon in D, the piece lends itself to improvisation.

Re: remixes of Pachelbel’s Canon: At least one comedian has ranted about it.

“Greensleeves” has also been done. My mother owns both of Kenny G’s holiday albums, one of which includes an up-tempo version of “Greensleeves”. I haven’t heard anybody try this with “Silent Night”, but Mannheim Steamroller recorded a dance-track arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus on one of their Christmas albums (while on another of those albums they did the reverse, turning “Jingle Bells” into a slow song).

I had already had enough of this trend after the first two that I heard, back in the mid-to-late 1990s. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is a pure power ballad, and making a dance version of it drained all of that power away. The original version of “Tom’s Diner” was a capella (just Suzanne Vega singing, no instruments) with pauses thrown in for dramatic effect, and of course the dance version had to remove those pauses, which were a big part of why the original version was so effective. A good arranger like Chip Davis (he’s the brains behind Mannheim Steamroller, mentioned above) might be able to get away with this. The perpetrators of the “Total Eclipse” and “Tom’s Diner” remixes were hacks.

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Books

You've read the blog, now try the books:

Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist will be published in December 2014 by Basic Books. "This fun, diverse, and accessible look at how science works will convert even the biggest science phobe." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "In writing that is welcoming but not overly bouncy, persuasive in a careful way but also enticing, Orzel reveals the “process of looking at the world, figuring out how things work, testing that knowledge, and sharing it with others.”...With an easy hand, Orzel ties together card games with communicating in the laboratory; playing sports and learning how to test and refine; the details of some hard science—Rutherford’s gold foil, Cavendish’s lamps and magnets—and entertaining stories that disclose the process that leads from observation to colorful narrative." --Kirkus ReviewsGoogle+

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is published by Basic Books. "“Unlike quantum physics, which remains bizarre even to experts, much of relativity makes sense. Thus, Einstein’s special relativity merely states that the laws of physics and the speed of light are identical for all observers in smooth motion. This sounds trivial but leads to weird if delightfully comprehensible phenomena, provided someone like Orzel delivers a clear explanation of why.” --Kirkus Reviews "Bravo to both man and dog." The New York Times.

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is published by Scribner. "It's hard to imagine a better way for the mathematically and scientifically challenged, in particular, to grasp basic quantum physics." -- Booklist "Chad Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is an absolutely delightful book on many axes: first, its subject matter, quantum physics, is arguably the most mind-bending scientific subject we have; second, the device of the book -- a quantum physicist, Orzel, explains quantum physics to Emmy, his cheeky German shepherd -- is a hoot, and has the singular advantage of making the mind-bending a little less traumatic when the going gets tough (quantum physics has a certain irreducible complexity that precludes an easy understanding of its implications); finally, third, it is extremely well-written, combining a scientist's rigor and accuracy with a natural raconteur's storytelling skill." -- BoingBoing